She is listening
by Swamy
Summary: Post 4x18. Oliver cannot let her go.
**Note:** This is a post 4x18 fanfiction. Laurel's death was disrespectful and cruel, and this is how I see this show ending. This is my headcanon, I will accept nothing else. #NoLaurelNoArrow. The song I used in this story is _Faded_ by Alan Walker (cover by Sara Farell).

#

 _You were the shadow to my light_ _  
_ _Did you feel us?_ _  
_ _Another start_ _  
_ _You fade away_ _  
_ _Afraid our aim is out of sight_ _  
_ _Wanna see us_ _  
_ _Alive_ _  
_ _Where are you now?_

He can feel the smell of her blood wetting his own lungs, the weight of topsoil falling on his chest and the sound of quiet goodbyes all around and he wants to scream. Oliver does scream…in the darkness of his bedroom, skin covered in cold sweat and hands reaching out to find the light switch. The sheet is tangled about one of his legs making him stumble as he drags himself out of the bed to pull away the heavy curtain and open the window. He must force the air up his nose and in the middle of his chest where something is cutting, and it doesn't matter how many times his hand tries to grab at his heart, his fingers can never grip the source of his pain.

In the quietude, he doesn't hear the steps approaching, but the slim girl comes to his side, pulls herself up until she's sitting on the windowsill, long legs gently swinging the same way they did whenever her mind went elsewhere when they were barely teenagers and he was trying to figure out how to kiss her.

Oliver rubs his face roughly with one hand as he feels her touch on his head. He looks up pushing back the weariness of the last days so that she'll soothe the demons he can barely keep at bay.

"It was just a nightmare," Laurel says, "I'm not there."

He nods, more than ready to let her erase the last days, the suffocating sweetness of flowers that follow him since the day of Laurel's funeral.

"Mind you, I'm not here, either," she adds, words burning him so much that part of him wants to jerk away from her touch. "And if I was, I don't think I would be wearing this," she adds, looking down at her clothes, fingers picking at the floral lace shorts she's wearing, black short nails popping up against the pink citrus of her lingerie, "This color doesn't really suit me," she says, mouth twisting in a pout.

"It does."

She gives him a wary look, like it's all a setup to make a move on her.

"You were wearing something like this one summer."

"Really?" she asks, genuinely curious.

"We were fourteen, and your dad forbid you to see me for a week because I had gotten into trouble, again, so I decided that I could sneak into your room from the window, but it was late and hot and you were wearing this…" he says, fingers reaching out, tempted to touch her but scared to. "You were so beautiful… All week, stuff kept falling out of my hands because I couldn't stop thinking of you," he admits with embarrassment.

"Was that the week you broke that statuette your mom liked so much?" she asks, surprised that she's only now hearing about it, "You know, that horrid blue resin thing of Isis nursing Horus?"

"Yes," he admits.

"Well, Oliver Queen, it seems that there are still secrets about you," she says, with a grin that's half flirty, half playful. They knew each other for so long that she doesn't need to play a part with him, she can be comfortable around him even if they are alone in his bedroom and she's dressed with very little. He can be comfortable with her even though she's not really there.

Yet, at her words, his smile falters and she notices. The shadows can't hide him from her, they never could.

"Ollie, what it is that you're not telling me?"

He cannot breathe and his voice comes out strangled. "I thought we had more time," and in a way it's ridiculous because they met when they were eleven, and she was his first love and his home and what brought him back from hell, and they were always together even when apart, even when the ocean was between them.

But, "I thought we had more time," he repeats, head falling until his forehead is pressed against her thigh and her hand is caressing the top of his head. He can almost smell the scent of magnolia lingering on her skin.

"I know," she says, hushing his pain, "I know."

#

His right arm is bleeding and he shakes the blood away with a disinterested gesture as he looks down on the street. The police are taking away the criminals he has beat up, the red lights are violent on the concrete as he hears the harsh voices of the policeman trying to keep at bay the little crowd of meddlers and the reporters.

"It looks bad," Laurel says, standing in her Black Canary suit, made graceful by all the years she spent practicing classic ballet to make her mother happy, made beautiful by that fire that he couldn't extinguish even when he was at his worst.

"This won't kill me," he says, eyes falling away from her, unable to look at what has the power to do that, little by little, every time he picks up the phone to call her and remembers that he can't anymore, every time he enters the bunker and sees her suit in a display case, like it's waiting for her to wear it again.

Felicity's voice is in his ear, "What did you say?" he can hear a light disturbance in the background.

"Nothing," he answers, "I'm done here," he adds before taking out his ear bud.

"Ask Felicity to patch you up," Laurel says, voice patient like she's talking to a stubborn child, "I hate to break it to you, but the wrinkly woman with half a dozen cats that lives down the street could make you work up a sweat, lately, so you'll have a better chance of winning her if you're in once piece."

He gives her a dirty look but all she does is shrug her shoulders and look at the horizon in front of her. There's a light wind that pulls back a lock of her blonde hair.

"I'm still a better fighter than you," he replies, a bit offended by her lack of appreciation at his capabilities. For all the times he tried, he could never love her right, but he can fight. He can only fight.

"Do I need to remind you that last time we trained together I made you kiss the floor?"

"It looked like you were flirting," he says, a smile curving his lips as he crosses his arms on his chest.

"Maybe from the ground it looked like that," she says, "But from where I was standing, it looked like I kicked your ass."

The air around is chill and the city is immobile. They are smiling at each other quietly, and he can feel a sense of peace threatening to spread to his limbs as he watches the matte, deep berry-wine of her lipstick make her teeth look even whiter, her smile even brighter, though he couldn't think it possible.

"Felicity can't help me," he confesses her, feeling the cut on his arm itch a little as the realization sinks. "She can barely stand the sight of blood." The last time she tried to patch him up she actually made the pain worse.

"She picked the wrong boyfriend, then," she says with a sigh, "Maybe you can go pick a date in the ER."

The last time he was in the hospital she was laying on that tiny bed and he could only hear the deafening silence of a flat line. He has no intention of going there, again.

The world seems to shift under his feet for a moment, and he could swear she's kicked him to the floor, again, if only his feet weren't firmly planted on the ground.

"What now?" she asks, suspiciously, "You have that look again."

"What look?" he asks, trying hard to smile and play along.

"The constipated one. The one that says _'God, Laurel, I fucked up so bad.'_ "

She always knew him better than anyone else. It's painful and warm and it makes him smile. There are so many things he wants to tell her but not one comes to mind right now.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, voice as soft as it was the first time he let his hand slip under her shirt, upon her breast.

The truth is _, all the time_ , but, "I can't feel a thing," he answers instead, and that's the truth also.

#

His body goes rigid at the sight of her. Her hands try to loosen up the fabric but it's not elastic enough for her and it's too tight around her torso and legs. It doesn't fit her right. It's just wrong, too wrong and he can't breathe.

"I think I will have to make a few adjustments," she says as she looks down, nose crinkled, lights reflecting on her glasses.

"Take it off," he says, his voice stark, his skin way too hot. Felicity doesn't look up, observing the suit and already planning the changes she needs to make.

"It's not that bad," she says, though she clearly feels clumsy, and she looks squeezed by the suit, like it could eat her alive for how weak she is, "I can cut this part an-"

"Take it off," he repeats, harder, his voice resounding like a hammer hitting malleable metal, "Put it back," he says, trying to regain his control, before turning his back to leave.

Felicity calls after him once but he ignores her, and just walks away, out in the open, where maybe his lungs will work properly again.

"That was harsh," Laurel says, but he ignores her, too, and gets in the car. His hands grip the wheel so hard the knuckles go white. "You've hurt her," Laurel scolds him.

"Yes," he says, turning towards her angrily, "That's what I do. That's all she's always telling me, that I lie to her, that I hurt her, that I'm not the man she thought I was." He's really not, because she fell in love with a fantasy, and he let her because it was easier.

"You are a bit messed up, but who isn't?" she asks, "Under all that, you're a good man, I always knew that," she reassures him, hand reaching out to cup his cheek, "and the situation could improve if you could stop talking to the dead," she informs him with an embarrassed expression.

"I can't see how it can possibly improve," because no one will ever see him or accept him the way she did, because no one will ever tell him that he's always been a good man.

Laurel takes her hand away, "I mean, it can hardly get worse, can it?" she asks with a shrug and a smile, "You still have people in your life, people you love. Talk to them."

Oliver turns his face away, looking outside the car's window. The image of Felicity wearing the Black Canary suit makes his stomach revolt.

"She can't have your suit," he says.

"Why not? It's not like I'm going to use it anytime soon."

Oliver shakes his head, trying not to laugh bitterly. It's so crazy that he needs to explain it to her.

"She lacks the training, the skill. She doesn't have the spirit for it," he protests, "Felicity can't take your place," he insists, turning to look at her. Her green eyes are clear and wide and he knows that she sees it.

Her voice is infinitely sad when she tells him "Oliver, she already did."

It makes him want to cry.

#

He opens her front door without making any noise. There's a faint light coming from the street lamps and the luminous banner of a cinema. Electricity hasn't been cut, yet, and everything has been left untouched except for her plants that have been watered, probably by Thea. She's still deciding if she's going to keep the apartament. She doesn't like it anymore without Laurel around.

He sits on the sofa, on the opposite end of the place where she liked to sit. There's the slightest dip in the cushion and he looks at it like he expects her to sit there any moment.

She does.

"This is breaking and entering," she informs him. "First degree burglary, punishable by up to six years of prison."

"You should call the police," he replies with a sigh, watching her pull up her legs the way she always used to.

"Funny," she says flatly, "What are you doing here?"

"Resting," he just replies. The place still smells like her, and his brain seems to slow down, finally, like it can stop crashing against the idea that she's not coming back, never going to fight him again, never fight at his side ever again. Never smelling of magnolia and smiling like she knows all of his secrets.

He closes his eyes, breathes her in and manages to sleep for long minutes. It's been almost a month since he could fall asleep quietly, without jerking awake smelling her blood on his clothes.

When he wakes, he turns to talk to her but she's not there. There's a spark of panic bubbling up in his chest but he knows she's going to come back, because she has no choice, because if she doesn't talk to him he can't even move.

Oliver looks around and notices the answering machine, where her voice is recorded. She won't get mad if he listens to her messages, it's just her voice he's interested in.

"Hi, this is Laurel, I'm not home right now but if you leave a message I'll get back at you as soon as possible. Promise."

Her voice is as kind as feminine and vibrant as he remembered, and for a magnificent moment it's all false. Her death, her funeral, her draining absence. But the feeling comes and goes, like a burning paper consuming all the air left.

He listens to the message again and again, like an addict trying to squeeze happiness from a bottle, and sits on the couch staring at the answering machine.

When he stops pushing the rewind button the mechanical voice announces, "You have four messages."

"Miss Lance, your jacket has been cleaned. You can come and pick it up whenever you want."

He wonders what jacket the woman is talking about, how much she liked it, if Quentin picked it up.

"Miss Lance your first appointment of the morning has been moved up of half an hour. I'm sorry, I know it's late but it was a change made at the last minute."

"Laurel…" the male voice is tense, something feels immediately suspicious and Oliver's protective instincts arise immediately, though uselessly. "I need- I think I need to see you. It's today. The anniversary of my wife's death. Linda died today and I… I need a drink so badly. Please, call me when you can."

He didn't know, but she was a sponsor. She was someone's rock, what kept them afloat when all they wanted was to sink in alcohol and never resurface. Did she have a sponsor, too? Who did she call when she needed a drink badly? Not him, because he had used her pain and her weakness against her, cut her out and humiliated her; though, she was always there when he needed her, if only because he was frustrated. Because he expected her to manage on her own, to be the unchanging and soft girl he left before falling off the face of the earth, even though he was not the faithful boy she thought had left her that day.

He doesn't listen to the last message. It's something about meeting for coffee and talking about a cheating bastard. Nothing new, really. Instead, he looks through her cabinets. He finds colored non-alcoholic little bottles, boxes of the Italian chocolates she loved all rolled into silver tinfoil with blue stars (she used to eat them when she was really sad or really happy), a book about how to make good drinks (Tommy was the master in that field, Laurel could never manage the doses just right), and old organizer with addresses, and two calendars with 462 crossed out days. 462 days of her staying clean and away from alcohol.

And behind them, a bottle of Jack Daniel's Old Time N.7 with its black label and amber color. He's sure she wasn't drinking anymore but now he can't imagine her reason for keeping the bottle, and he just needs a drink, or to gulp down the whole bottle in one go.

He reaches out to take the bottle and a yellow sticker note tickles the palm of his hand. When he looks at it, there's Laurel's handwriting staring back at him, asking _"What the fuck do you think you're doing?_ "and he can't help but laugh – bitterly, sadly– because she kept temptation around to make herself stronger when no one believed she could make it in the first place, because she was beautiful and so proud and he left her alone.

He finds himself sitting on the floor, staring at the unopened bottle, at her fluttering handwriting, remembering her first drink and the way she kept coughing when she tasted it.

"I was an asshole," he says.

"You're not waiting for me to deny that, are you?" she asks, from a corner in the room, "Because you might be waiting awhile," she explains, taking a few steps forward but making no noise. Oliver laughs and looks up to see her as she lowers herself to the ground, sitting in front of him on the floor, with her long naked legs crossed. She's wearing jeans shorts, a hoodie and a pair of socks. She's dressed the way she was when they made love the first time after his return from the island.

"How could you love me?" he asks, maybe to her but more to himself. He was so busy with his mission, so busy with his dating life that he paid no attention to the one person that had accompanied him all his life, though she had no obligation towards him, the one person that had always accepted the man he was though she saw the man he could be.

"I think we both know that I was too good for my own good," she replies quietly.

"Yes," he agrees, half breathless.

"I loved you and it's okay," she says, "You don't need to feel bad, you can let me go."

But as she talks he can't stop shaking his head no, "I can't."

"You'll go mad if you go on like this," she insists.

"I'll go mad without you!" he hisses between his teeth.

Her green eyes look sad as she stares at him. He wants to beg her not to be sad, he wants to beg her to not ask him to let her go. He does neither of the two.

"I have no regrets," she says. "I always did what I thought was right. I told you what I needed to. I'm at peace," she explains to him, "Why can't you be, too?"

He wants to tell her, but the words get stuck in his throat, try to suffocate him. She's so beautiful he can barely breathe.

"You're not leaving me," he only says.

"Never," she agrees with a melancholic smile, "That's the whole point."

#

It's the product of five months of hard work and long nights. He stares at the man lying on the ground, ice blue eyes open wide, staring at the ceiling while life escapes him so fast he can hardly react at all. Oliver strives to hear the choked breath that leaves him, the gurgle of the blood pooling in his lungs as he kneels next to Damien Darhk and bends down to murmur in his ear, "You should have never touched her," because he must know his fatal error, he must know why his life is lost, "Not _her_."

The man's eyes turn on him and his grin is dirty with his own blood when he speaks. "I'll tell her you said 'Hi…' when I see her in hell," and it's like a switch gets turned off. There's nothing but blackness in Oliver's mind. All he sees is Laurel smiling brightly at him as his hands grip Damien Darhk's head to smash it against the ground. Once, twice and again and again and again, until the breaking of his skull and the wet sound his soggy brain makes becomes almost lulling.

There's hardly anything left of the man's face when he manages to stop, maybe minutes later, he's not sure. But Oliver is breathing hard, and is covered in blood and grey matter and it smells like a slaughterhouse.

Laurel kneels next to him – his arrow pierces her in the middle of her abdomen, her chin is dirty with her blood - and points her finger to her face to tell him, "You have some brain there," but he has an empty look so she adds, "on the cheek…" He doesn't try to clean himself of the blood. He killed a man and taking a shower won't wash away what he did. He doesn't want to wash it away. He got what he deserved.

He stays silent when Laurel asks, "I won't say I told you so, but you aren't feeling any better now, are you?" He only looks up to see her as beautiful as ever. No trace of blood or pain upon her.

"I'm still dead," she says with little gentleness. He doesn't mind it.

"You did it. You made justice. You vindicated me," she admits with a sigh, eyes kind under her black mask, "You can let me go, now."

"Don't ask me to do that," he says, looking away.

"It's over," she states, trying to make him face the truth, "I am fine."

"I'm not," he replies.

"I got the hint when you started to hallucinate me," Laurel mocks him gently, making him laugh. He can taste Damien Darhk's blood on his lower lip, and it's not as uncomfortable as it's supposed to be.

"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" she asks, sounding a little exasperated by his behavior.

"I…" there's nothing else to do now, no one to kill, no revenge to plan. Now, his only choice is to live with it, with the cold absence of her that's drying his soul, and no breach to free himself from the prison he chose. "I should have told you, but I was a coward," he admits, trying not to let his voice break as his eyes become wet, "I was always such a coward with you."

"Tell me now," she offers softly, "I'm listening."

"You left before I could tell you. I'm so sorry," he says, "I never… I never got to tell you… I was so stupid, I never told you… that you were the love of my life, too."

And he cries. He cries because of all the wasted time, because of what could have been. He cries because now that he told her, she's going to leave him, and he can't bear the thought. He cries because she already left.

#

Oliver places one hand on Quentin's shoulder, feeling the tension in his body, the effort it takes him to not break to pieces in front of his daughter's gravestone. It's a nice day, warm and bright. She would love it.

He did all he could to help Quentin bear the pain, to stop him from falling back to his days of alcoholism time and time again, using the memory of her to blackmail him into staying sober, using the memory of her to force him to stay alive, because he knows that's what Laurel would want him to do.

"It's already been one year," the man says with a tired voice, like all the days of that year are piled up on his shoulders. Oliver is sure they are.

Her grave is always covered in flowers. A lot of grateful people come to pay their respects, every day. Some of them, every now and then, ask him what kind of person she was, what pushed her to become a hero, a martyr for the city. But there's no explanation to offer other than, "That's what she always was."

Oliver leaves Quentin alone, standing a few feet away, to watch over him the way Laurel did whenever he went to visit Sara in the years he thought her to be dead. He stands there for an hour, not minding the minutes passing, and after that he drives him home, invites himself over the next night to dine together and watch a game he doesn't know the rules of. He does that often, bringing Chinese food and beer. Maybe this time they will order pizza.

Sometimes Quentin tries to tell him he's got no obligation to spend time with him, that he should concentrate on making a life with himself. Something more stable than the occasional one night stand. After all Quentin has Donna, and Oliver – if only he would let himself – could have Felicity. She's tried, in her own way, to get close. She gave him signals that she's ready to try again, maybe tie the knot, give their love another chance. Half the time, Oliver pretends not to see the way her eyes linger on him, half the time he pretends not to hear the way her voice softens on his name. Half the time he doesn't need to pretend at all.

"Sometimes I talk to her," Quentin blurts out while Oliver is going away, stopping him in his tracks and making him turn. "I feel like she's still with me and I talk to her. But I don't know if she's listening," he explains, his voice breaking along the last words.

"She does," Oliver says, sounding sure. "I have no doubt she does," he adds before walking away, leaving Quentin a little piece of peacefulness.

It's a nice day and there's a faint smell of magnolia in the air coming from the garden of Quentin's neighbor. Oliver can't help but smile.

"Oh, the irony," he hears Laurel sigh, hitting his side with her elbow as she walks next to him along the tree-lined road.

 _Where are you now_ _  
_ _Atlantis_ _  
_ _Under the sea_ _  
_ _Under the sea_ _  
_ _Where are you now_ _  
_ _Another dream_ _  
_ _The monsters running wild inside of me_ _  
_ _I'm faded_ _  
_ _I'm faded_ _  
_ _So lost, I'm faded_


End file.
